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Timing isn't everything

Nature Neuroscience volume 13, pages 277–279 (2010)Cite this article

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Synaptic long-term potentiation and depression are determined by the frequency and timing of coactivated synapses. A new model explains many experimental plasticity observations and allows new predictions about neural circuit function.

Computational modeling of the nervous system serves two important purposes: to assess our understanding of neural systems and to generate predictions that will lead to new experiments and eventual improvements of the models. Computational models can simulate systems, cells and molecules. The development of models that span across these levels of analysis is a substantial challenge. Clopath et al.1 reports such a level-spanning model for synaptic plasticity in this issue. Their model is based on cellular data, which in turn provides systems-level predictions about the neural connectivity and coding underlying the formation of receptive-field properties in a network. The model is impressive for its ability to explain a broad range of experimental results. It is therefore an important advance that is likely to motivate and inform future studies crossing the systems, cellular and molecular levels.

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Figure 1: Membrane potential–based rules for LTP and LTD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurobiology & Physiology at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA

    Nelson Spruston & Jianhua Cang

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  1. Nelson Spruston
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  2. Jianhua Cang
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Correspondence to Nelson Spruston.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Spruston, N., Cang, J. Timing isn't everything. Nat Neurosci 13, 277–279 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0310-277

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